


The mercy of Death

by janescott



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Dark, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-01
Updated: 2011-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-23 08:25:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janescott/pseuds/janescott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com kink meme prompt: John has two scars in his back that he doesn't remember getting. They are about eight inches long and about three wide. He didn't have them before Afghanistan.</p><p>After taking a good look Sherlock is like "Stop worrying, it's just where your wings used to be."</p><p>This came out differently than I thought it would and I'm not sure how Death got in there. It's a little ... vague? But it's something I wanted to try, so here it is. Beta'd by magenta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The mercy of Death

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are the properties of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the BBC, respectively. Fan fiction for fun, not profit :-)

The first time; after the first time - Sherlock lays John out on his back, on the bed, and studies him with the same intensity he studies bodies at a crime scene.

His eyes miss nothing, his fingertips brush over every inch of John’s skin; tracing over the scar on his shoulder, mapping over the contours of his fading, ancient appendix scar.

John feels loose, like his bones are going to melt right into the mattress. When he shifts his hips a certain way, he can still feel the deep, pleasing ache of having Sherlock inside him and he’s feeling … generous, he thinks, as Sherlock slides his hand down John’s thigh, his fingertips tapping against an old wound - the one that had given him his limp originally.

The one that led to him carrying his limp long after the wound itself had healed …

Sherlock glances up, quickly, like he wants to say something, but seems to reconsider, and instead returns to his intense, silent mapping of John’s body. He’s being memorised, John realises, for what reason he doesn’t know, and he’s too comfortable, too sated right now to ask.

John closes his eyes, and his world soon narrows to the feel of the tangled sheets under his back, to the slide of Sherlock’s fingers over his knees, the rubbing of his thumb over the jut of John’s ankle bone … he could go to sleep like this, he thinks. With Sherlock’s hands tracing patterns seen and unseen, on his skin.

“John.”

“Hmmm …”

“Don’t fall asleep on me now. Turn over?”

John grumbles, because he’s comfortable but he complies after a bit, rolling on to his front, sighing as he settles on the other side of the bed, the sheets cool against his heated skin.

He tucks his arms under the pillow and rests his head, settling his cheek against the welcoming cotton.

He shivers slightly when he feels Sherlock’s fingers again, tracing over the backs of his calves, his thighs … John’s hips cant upward as Sherlock’s fingers reach his lower back, but Sherlock just laughs, softly.

“John,” he says, his voice sounding puzzled. “John … you have scars.”

“Yes, I know. I was shot, in Afghanistan. Of course I have scars.”

“No - these aren’t from a bullet, they’re too long …”

Sherlock carefully traces one finger over the outline of one of the scars, and John shivers again, becoming more and more sensitised to Sherlock’s touch. He’s getting hard again, he notes somewhat distantly, his cock filling and pushing against the mattress.

“Oh, of course,” Sherlock says suddenly.

“They’re from your wings.”

 _dust and blood, and sand, and screaming; john on his knees begging Death to take the wings from him to set him free, to let him be human again_

“My - wings.” John’s throat dries up, but he feels his cock pulse against the mattress again, as Sherlock feathers his fingertips lightly over one of the scars, tracing its full length.

“Your heartrate is rising,” Sherlock says, his own voice sounding caught and breathless.

“I - I don’t - I can’t -”

The memories are there, flashes like a stuttering film every time Sherlock brushes his fingers over the long scars, but they’re unwelcome right now.

“Sherlock. Please. Sherlock.”

John breathes out again when he feels Sherlock’s fingertips rise from his skin, and his memories settle back into the safe, dark space of his mind he’d ruthlessly consigned them to so many months ago.

He sighs when he feels Sherlock’s fingers again, this time coated in cool-slick lube, stroking, coaxing at his entrance. Sherlock presses his mouth to the back of John’s neck, seeking out the spot that will make his back arch off the bed in a silent, wanton invitation.

Sherlock’s careful, very careful as he slides in, to keep his hands away from the scars, but John knows it’s only a matter of time …

 _Death is beautiful, remote like the sky; her wingspan covering nearly the whole of the terrain that’s visible from horizon to horizon. John is at her feet, curled in a ball._

 _“What do you want, then? If not to be my angel of mercy. If not to bring me gifts.”_

 _“To be human,” John rasps out, his voice nearly gone from screaming, his whole body on fire. “Just - to be human.”_

 _Death tilts her head to one side, her black eyes narrowing. “Human. Boring. But you’re no good to me like this anyway.”_

 _The pain of losing his wings - a dubious gift at best, when he had nearly bled out from the wound in his thigh, men lying dead around him, and there she was, in her beautiful, terrible glory, offering him another way - is wrenching, and John passes out from it, waking up in a field hospital, with the news that the bullet wound in his shoulder is such he’s being invalided back home._

 _The rest, he buries._

“You remember,” Sherlock says to him, his voice muffled against John’s neck, his strokes in and out a long, smooth glide that’s not quite enough yet to send John over the edge.

“Yes,” he says, his voice breaking like feathers torn apart in a sudden dust storm as Sherlock rolls against him, into him, their hands tangled together. He’s coming, suddenly, and he can feel Sherlock behind him, shuddering, their orgasms nearly in sync and John thinks, that means something, or it should mean something.

Like wing-scars on the back of a soldier and former angel of Death.


End file.
